I’m trying to build a model of how these things can work. Think about all the variables, both intrinsic – from your personality, for example – and extrinsic – like no one laughs at a cartoon sitting alone in their living room, but everyone laughs when they see it on Power Point in a big audience.(1)

For humorists itself, such research is a forbidden area. The actual process comes from the unconscious. If they know about it, they won’t be able to do it. It’s the forbidden fruit. The more you think about it in this way, the less you’re actually free to free associate.